Thunder-Mavericks (Game 2): Lots of wrong and missed calls, interesting stats after you add it all up

We reviewed lots of calls (15, our most to date!) from last night’s Oklahoma City-Dallas game (game 2 of the series), and it kept us pretty busy as you’ll see in the video below. Overall, it was much better officiated than Game 1 that “starred” ref Joe Crawford, but there were still enough calls in this game that were pretty questionable.

The number of calls and no-calls we reviewed that favored Dallas was 2 1/2, and those that favored Oklahoma City was 5. This is a raw calculation that doesn’t take into account the impact of the calls/no-calls on the final score, but it’s interesting data nonetheless.

By the way, our video is a little distorted because of some software issues that our vendor hasn’t resolved for us yet, but it still works decent enough.

Here’s a summary of the calls that are in the video above:

Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki lifted his pivot foot before releasing the ball on the dribble that led to a dunk, which is a travel (most refs miss this for some reason, which we describe in further detail here).

OKC’s Kevin Durant was able to sneak a half-step on his drive to the basket that led to his amazing dunk. Thus, it was a missed travel.

Ref Tom Washington made a bad call on Dallas’ Ian Mahinmi when it appeared he made no contact on a driving James Harden.

Ref Greg Willard called an offensive foul on OKC’s Kevin Durant, which looked legit, although it appeared that Dallas’ DeShawn Stevenson sold it really well (so we’ll call this a “push” and deem the call didn’t favor one team over another).

Ref Greg Willard appears to correctly call a foul on Dallas’ DeShawn Stevenson by applying light contact on OKC’s Kevin Durant, although if he hadn’t called it, no one probably would have had a problem with it. So we’ll also call this one a “push” that didn’t wrongly favor one team over another.

Ref Bill Spooner will miss an extended elbow from Dallas’ Tyson Chandler on an illegal screen on OKC’s Kevin Durant.

Ref Tom Washington calls a shooting foul on Dirk Nowitzki against OKC’s James Harden that probably should have been a no-call.

Ref Tom Washington calls a foul on OKC’s Nick Collison when Dallas’ Tyson Chandler was culpable as well, locking up Collison’s arm. Probably should have been a double-foul. We’ll count this as 1/2 a call that favored Dallas.

The refs give Dirk Nowitzki 3 free throws when OKC’s Nick Collison fouled him, but everyone misses the fact that Nowitzki lifted his pivot foot during all of this, so it should have been a travel.

The refs missed Dallas’ Tyson Chandler pushing of OKC’s Kendrick Perkins to the floor, although a different foul was called a couple of seconds later.

Durant clearly traveled on his “highlight reel” dunk. Prototypical example of how the NBA game has degraded into AND1 territory.

Additionally, Westbrook’s drive to the basket (in which a foul was called on Jason Kidd) shouldn’t have been a shot attempt at all because Westbrook traveled to get into the paint.

Most of today’s “stars” would have difficulty scoring if they had to play by the rules. Fortunately for them, they don’t have to.

One

It’s interesting to see the officiating in this series since Nowitzki, Kidd, Durant and Westbrook get the benefit of the doubt from the refs most of the time, especially Kidd.
The traveling calls aren’t that bothersome considering how fast the teams are in realtime but the bad shooting fouls that get called are ridiculous.
Barea’s flop doesn’t appear as egregious as Stevenson’s. Isn’t Barea 5’9 anyway? It’s not too hard to believe his center of mass is far lower than most other players.
For a non-physical series, the officiating is surprising. Here’s hoping the refs will be better for the rest of the series.

Hhtyh

Why do you say stevenson “sold” that contanct? you can see that durant blatantly shoved him off of him. The only reason he might have gotten that call to go against him is it was “durant the superstar”. Pretty stupid logic IMO and obvious foul.

RefCalls-TopFlops staff

If you’re going to use inflammatory words like “stupid,” then we’ll respond in kind…idiot. You are blind if you can’t tell that Stevenson sold that. A stronger word would have been “flop,” which we didn’t use because he did receive a little contact from Durant. But any player who throws their arms back, and who has flopped 2 or 3 times previously on the same player, has a reputation of selling it. If you want to keep things professional, we’ll respond with professional language. if you want to use insulting language, we’ll respond in kind.

Trhthdrt

Also the perks foul. Perks drove his chest into dirk when he was in his shooting motion. Again, your analysis seems biased cause anyone with eyes can see he “chest checked” him.

Whatever

Pretty obvious you are trying to shade yourm own “calls” in this. Again I find bogus claims made here. You say dirk was traveling because he didn’t release the ball before the pivot foot, but your video doesn’t SHOW that you simply believe that. You even had the audacity to speed up the replay rate so it looks like when the ball is “released” it immediately hits the ground like being shot out of a gun. You don’t show the foot moving before releawse, you simply made it up. Anti-dallas garbage.

RefCalls-TopFlops staff

You are an absolute idiot and blind. You are also a coward using fake email addresses for each comment.

2006finalswererigged

the call you want to be a double foul is chandler setting a screen. that’s the arm motion players typically adopt when setting screens, and it seems like a huge leap to say that should be a foul on chandler too because 1) that is very difficult to tell if he is actually holding him down and 2) collison initiated the contact by putting his arm into where chandler’s were locked so that could be where the foul starts.

your point about the nowitzki “travel” on the three point shot also seems wrong, since the contact occurs before he lifts the left pivot foot, meaning at the very least it should be on the floor, but definitely not a travel.

bope123

I mentioned this on the missed travels webpage. But right away the first play you guys have, Yes he traveled, lifting his pivot before dribbiling. But this “second travel” you’ve pointed out would not of been a travel hes still dribbling/gathering that ball on your “step 1″ count. After watching that traveling video I feel like you guys have a difficult time understanding the rules regarding gathering of the ball, the ball is still being gathered therefore while his gathering he does not have a pivot foot yet just like while your dribbiling you don’t have a pivot foot yet. Traveling in non NBA terms is pretty easy to understand once you’ve established a pivot it cannot be lifted and then be returned to the floor. Which is basically 2 steps which is why it’s taught that way it’s easy to remember. However we teach it that way to children to make it easy but when you are trying to put out this “steps” in your video your missing the point. He must secure that ball first after dribbling and “complete his gather” then the foot on the floor is the pivot and once that leaves the floor it cannot return without it being a traveling violation.

bope123

same thing i just talked about on the analysis of the Durant dunk. That was not a travel, you have to understand this “first step” your counting, the ball is loose if you look closely and could theoretically be put back down for another dribble if he just let that ball hit the floor with putting his hand under it a “carrying”.

bope123

*without putting his hand under

RefCalls-TopFlops staff

We forget if we have pointed out this piece we wrote extensively about the sneaking in of a first step that isn’t supported in the rulebook. Look halfway down the page at http://wp.me/p1uswc-8x.

BTW: We are going to moderated comments. We’ve had issues with some spammers we’ve had to clean up, which is a pain. Most sites that have become popular have had to go to that practice.

RefCalls-TopFlops staff

We’ve written it many times…the word “gather,” or even the concept, is not in the rule book. It’s a fabrication. That really about says it all.

bope123

5th call you guys brought up on Perkins, one that angle is awful and 2 I’m pretty sure he got him with his hips. Looks like he thrusted his hips up into Dirk, your right clean up top but gotta look for that body sometimes a good Big Man defender know’s how to trick officials but using there torso and chest to play D instead of swinging and hitting because swinging and hitting is so much easier to see for an official.

RefCalls-TopFlops staff

Yep, that’s why we used the word “questionable” since the camera angle isn’t definitive. But looks like Dirk did a little bit of flopping/selling there.

http://www.facebook.com/Drumcat71 Drum Cat

Wow. You actually agree with JVG? Uh huh. You and 7 other people outside of the ref crew and the Stern syndicate. Meanwhile, all the rest of us see that Westbrook lowered his shoulder and absolutely barreled through Barea. He pummeled him egregiously while Barea had straight-up position, and you can not honestly deny it. With such blunt force, there is no way Barea could have kept his body from flying back as it did. It’s a wonder how he stayed on his feet. It obviously should have been called an offensive foul.

j0Shi

My goodness … this is easily the worst officiated series so far in this playoffs (and maybe even in a loooong time). Really looking forward to your take on Game 3